Railroad History in Brief

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

Railroad History in Brief
By
Roger Hensley

I have nearly always been interested in trains. Unfortunately, the traction lines were gone by the time that I could remember. Union Traction followed by Indiana Railroad interurban lines with their power plants and maintenance facilities and frequent passenger runs were headquartered here and in Indianapolis.

Anderson Indiana was the intersection of the very busy Big Four (NYC) Cleveland-St. Louis double track main with the Big Four Elkhart-Louisville line crossing it. The Central Indiana Railway ran from Anderson West to Brazil (near the Illinois line). At one time it had run to Muncie in the East. The Pennsylvania RR ran from Chicago to Cincinnati.
http://madisonrails.railfan.net/r_RR_history_in_brief.html

2

Nice Roger. We have whats left of a one-time huge traction system, right down the street. T.M.E.L.& R.R. Co.

https://www.easttroyrr.org/

Why was it called traction? It seems anything that ran from wires above, in the small street car variety, is called traction. Just wondering

Mike.

3

Different people probably used different terminology. I see it in the forums quite often.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electric_traction

Rich

4

Traction simply means power to the road or rail. Electric traction comes in the Interurban or trolley cars. Power cars is what the railroads called their heavy locomotives when they had them.